One Story Can Change Your Life
The Deep, Magical, and Frightening Art of Telling A Great Story.
Astory will change your life. Maybe it already has. But if not, I write this to make it likely that it will.
I fought and lost the battle to some of the toughest internal demons I’ve ever encountered, when on my path of trying to turn my ideas into a business. I, many times, hung up the boots and quit.
In those tough moments, telling a story changed my life. I didn’t know it then. In fact, I couldn’t comprehend it for some time. How simple the answer actually was.
But I do today, and its power is vast if you learn to use it well.
So I’ll lay it out for you in detail. Giving you all that you must know, in hope that you too can tell that one story that will change your life.
However, if you’re here just for the actionable ‘how to’, 6 full mouse scrolls and you’ll get there right away — but remember, ignoring the rest is likely what’s stopping you from telling a great story in the first place.
So, let’s begin. Here is my story…
Dedicated to Engineers, Coders, technical people, and intellectuals. As this is your achilles heel. I know, because I am one of you.
Fresh as a high school graduate, with slightly too much energy, and an unexplained zest for doing stupid sh*t.
I eventually came to be branded as “The Ideas Guy”.
I, for some unknown reason, came up with new business ideas that I would proudly tell my group of friends about. And soon after, I would start to hash out some serious work on them.
It’s not as if I was blessed with some sort of inherent entrepreneurial spirit.
I am an Indian-born Australian kid, who was studying Electrical Engineering — and my group of friends at the time were pretty much the same — I was as categorically “standard” as one could be.
But I always came across new solutions to existing problems.
One of these involved setting up a clothing store called Alpha (symbol above) where people could come in to the store and design their own clothes. Because clothing brands, and options, at the time really sucked.
Another, with a friend, was to create a business that charged corporations to plant trees to counterbalance their greenhouse gas emissions. Because environmental degradation was as real a thing as it is today.
And another, slightly later on, was to create an application that made it easy to use your phone to pay for tolls on toll freeways, instead of the only other method, which involved buying electronic tags and attaching them to the head of your car’s windscreen (particularly pressing problem for tourists).
BUT — the same thing kept happening.
I saw these and other ideas get crushed, time and time again.
Ideas and solutions moved in and out.
I would do my best to move with my idea, spending late nights, and energy to develop a seemingly brilliant solution. But it came undone at the point when I reached the gatekeepers. Those powerful gatekeepers who I needed on my side to make each idea a reality. I never got the same energy back from them. So move I did…onto the next.
Hence, becoming The Ideas Guy.
“It was a matter of time until I stumbled upon the right idea, as these weren’t it? Right?” — I thought.
Wrong.
- Alpha I saw executed a few years later by several businesses. All doing $M/year of business each.
- Carbon offsetting, well, several $B are done in the voluntary market each year. At the time the industry didn’t exist.
- Blue Dot innovation executed the world’s first mobile tolling platform. Pivoted to doing several other things today. Valued at $10M+ with CFO of PayPal coming on as a director.
Whereas I was sitting in lectures, taking notes on Kirchhoff’s Law, power distribution, and magnetic flux. All the while hoping that one of my many opportunities would gather steam and I could dedicate my all to it.
They said never to give up. Persistence is the key to success.
So I listened, and I persisted.
Amidst the same scenario replaying over and over.
It was shattering. Painful. Having to face rejection, one after the other, when you put yourself so far on the line. At the moment of highest vulnerability, you get cut down. You feel helpless.
Enough rejections, enough setbacks, and I started to question that maybe I just wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t cut out for this.
The others had the flair, they were smarter, they had skills, they were *fill the blank*.
I didn’t have what it takes. I should just stick it out with Engineering.
Little did I know that all ideas and early business ventures involve emotion transportation. No matter how amazing the solution and strategy may be. Unfortunately for me, and with most of you I suspect, transporting emotion was where I was failing.
The Gate
My Answer On The Magical Path
These others who executed the ideas I couldn’t, would have gone through the same journey as me, we were on the same path together.
But as we reached the gate where emotional transport was your ticket to proceed any further, I was asked to turn back around, whereas the others were waived through and given a stamp for re-entry.
Stats, figures, and technical expertise were my thing. Logically I was an A+.
But logic doesn’t spark emotion, and without emotion, you haven’t even started to roll the dice.
“Recognize that emotions play just as an important role as intellect in how people make decisions. Stories — not facts, figures and spreadsheets — tap the heart. This concept can be difficult to grasp for those coming from technical orientations. Engineers in particular tend to view anecdotes as fluff, not fodder, for bolstering one’s communications.”
— LOU HOFFMAN
To be an effective entrepreneur, father, friend, speaker, teacher, mostly anything. Transporting emotion is everything.
I would resort to logic, because logic was the easy way out. I was less scared.
“If I ask you to think about something, you can decide not to. But if I make you feel something? Now I have your attention.”
— Lisa Cron
Today, as I sit back many years later and reverse engineer what’s changed. How have I been able to execute ideas more frequently than not. How have I been able to create, and help others also execute, successful projects, $M+ businesses, deeper more meaningful relationships. Better presentations. Better writing. Greater engagement.
And more opportunities in all aspects of life.
Here’s what I’ve learnt.
Why do I know this?
Because out of all the careers, occupations, and roles I have dipped my feet into — here’s the wide-ranging list:
- Radio jockeying
- MC’ing
- Sales
- Management
- Designing
- Public speaking
- Scriptwriting
- Cold Calling
- Negotiation
There has been a pivotal moment in each where a story has always been told.
The inflection points have, more often than not, involved a story.
And, well you’re reading this far into this letter aren’t you? And you want to know what’s next. Story must be powerful enough.
And everyday that I try to tell a better story, it pulls the lever harder on improving so many other facets simultaneously.
Communication. Confidence. Connection. Clarity of thinking. Calmness. Contentment. Command of the language. Many more…
You can’t tell a great story without the above.
And each time you do, you are preparing for that one day. The day when you MUST tell a story.
That one story that will change your life.
Backed By Science
It’s Been Proven
What I’m writing above isn’t anything new. It is however important enough to rewrite and simplify so more of you put it to use.
Storytelling has been the primary form of communication since…forever.
It isn’t just mere coincidence that the most everlasting pieces of information shared from generation to generation are stories. Not stats, figures, or a bullet point from a presentation.
Without now unleashing upon you a barrage of studies, and other technical eye-glazing statistics to prove my point, as that would be the easy thing to do. And contradict exactly what I am trying to promote.
Here’s the straight dope —
Scientifically, our brains are wired for storytelling. Any area of our brain that would typically light up if we were the actual person in the particular story we’re being told, and the story was happening to us at the time, does.
Please re-read the above sentence if it went over your head.
Because when telling a story, anything you’ve experienced, you get others to experience too. To put it in the simplest possible way — both brains synchronise.
I can’t express it any better than the Heath brothers here:
“…we can’t imagine events or sequences without evoking the same modules of the brain that are evoked in real physical activity. Brain scans show that when people imagine a flashing light, they activate the visual area of the brain; when they imagine someone tapping on their skin, they activate tactile areas of the brain. The activity of mental simulation is not limited to the insides of our heads.
People who imagine words that start with b or p can’t resist subtle lip movements, and people who imagine looking at the Eiffel Tower can’t resist moving their eyes upward. Mental simulation can even alter visceral physical responses: When people drink water but imagine that it’s lemon juice, they salivate more. Even more surprisingly, when people drink lemon juice but imagine that it’s water, they salivate less.”
Hence, stories are not a passive exercise for the listener, telling a powerful story is effectively a mental simulation for the receiving party.
It is the next best thing to being there, doing it, and experiencing it yourself.
So let me repeat for effect — when you tell a great story, you literally transfer the emotion to the receiving party’s brain. It is like they are there.
From 600 BC
2,000+ years ago
A fox one day saw a beautiful bunch of ripe grapes hanging from a vine along the branches of a tree. The grapes seemed ready to burst with juice and the fox’s mouth watered as he gazed longingly at them.
The bunch hung from a high branch, and the fox had to jump for it.
The first time he jumped he missed it by a long way. So he walked off a short distance and took a running leap at it, only to fall short once more. Again and again he tried, but in vain.
Soon, he was exhausted from trying. So, he sat down and looked at the grapes in disgust and proclaimed,
“What a fool I am! Those bunch of grapes are sour, and not ripe at all!”.
This is an old fable by Greek writer Aesop (over 2,000 years ago).
And yet to this day, the term “sour grapes” is a part of our everyday vocabulary. Meaning — when you can’t have something, you decide to instead have a negative attitude towards it.
The power of story.
Telling Better Stories
How To
Watch stand up comedy. Listen to talks. Read fiction. Read comic strips. Tune in to the world.
Don’t get bogged down in the semantics of what constitutes a good story and what type of story structures there are. A search on the internet will come up with a million suggestions and you’ll kick some serious tires.
Those details are only necessary when the rest becomes unnecessary.
And if I tell you that telling stories is easy, I would be lying. It’s remarkably hard. It brings up that deep fear, the on-the-edge-of-a-cliff vulnerability, like every other time when you put yourself out there.
But here is my attempt at simplifying becoming a better storyteller for you.
It is what I’ve seen the best do, again and again.
Practice. Observe.
The simple rule is practice, practice, practice and then observe.
With practice you’ll have more stories to tell. Your stories will improve. The bad stories will be omitted. Your confidence will increase. You will become a sharper thinker. You’ll then deliver more encapsulating stories and hence get better results. And be happier.
Now, by observe I mean be on the lookout for great stories. They are everywhere. Each day you socialise it is likely someone will tell you a great story. Be present to this, as these stories you are being told are ones that have already been through several channels. They have passed the ‘boring snoring’ test. Treat them with importance and learn from them. Write the gems down. The more you have in your arsenal, the more you have to practice with, the more you will improve at the art of emotional transfer.
There is really nothing else to it.
A poor story told is better than no story told.
However, I must pause, as I do forget who I am talking to here,
And I know for you, structure and a methodical approach are vital. So if structure mitigates your fear from having to jump right into it — then read a gruelling post I put all my energy into. On the principles of marketing.
Follow those guidelines and use the checklist when creating your story, and you’re likely to filter out the terrible and improve the ones you already have.
But no amount of preparation will allow you to veer away from having to tackle the deep fear within you which will stop you from telling the story in the first place.
Which will tell you you’re stupid. It will also tell you, this is a skill for others. Not you. It will tell you to resort to logic, facts, and figures that you can hide your vulnerability behind. It will tell you that stories don’t have any impact.
Because that’s the easy way out.
But, then having read the above, you’ll remember that this is all practice anyway. Only you are the critic, the world is your test subjects.
And practice is your only key to get through the gate.
Summary
With a short story…
The Four-Hour Workweek, a book I choose to mention here, as it is one most of you are familiar with.
The manuscript for that book was rejected by 25 publishers. When in the pitch meeting with the 26th publisher, the last on list, the meeting wasn’t heading in a positive direction and it seemed that this publisher was also on the verge of rejecting it along with 25 others.
They were wrapping things up.
So in his final words at the meeting, the author Tim Ferriss, decided to tell them a story. A story about his successes as an athlete, a professional dancer, an entrepreneur, and so on. He mentioned his successful track record, his grit, and how he fought to become top of the world in several different fields and never gave up.
The punch line of the story — that betting on him is a likely bet that he will do anything and everything it takes to succeed.
The deal was signed.
And today, his book has been in the top seller list for more than 4 years.
Now, I don’t know if this story is true. As, after the fact, a story is usually exaggerated. But it really doesn’t matter. Because it summarises this entire post quite succinctly, in that…
One story can change your life.
My story in 6 lines — Studied to become an Engineer (did a 5.5 year double degree), but quit instead to start a record label, write a movie script, and tour the world as an MC and performer. With little savings left, co-founded now the largest AV provider in WA — growing it 100% year on year. Working on my next venture which will help people connect face to face in a way social media cannot do.
Previous Popular Posts…
P.S. Thanks to Jon Westenberg, James Altucher, Kevin Rose, Naval Ravikant, Marc Cenedella, Paul Graham, Justin Jackson, Dave Morin, Ev Williams and David Cancel for the inspirational stories that contributed to this.
